On Thursday night, the NFL will hold their annual draft when it conducts the first round at Radio City Music Hall in New York City under the watchful eye of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Rounds Two and Three will be held on Friday night and Rounds Four through Seven will be held on Saturday afternoon and you can watch each and every selection on ESPN and the NFL Network.

Heading into the draft the New England Patriots hold the following draft picks:

Round/Pick     Notes

• 1/27 – via New Orleans
• 1/31
• 2/48 – via Oakland
• 2/62
• 3/93
• 4/126
• 5/166 – traded to Cincinnati for WR Chad Ochocinco
• 6/200 – traded to Philadelphia for LB Tracy White
• 7/223 – via Philadelphia traded to Minnesota with WR Randy Moss
• 7/238 – traded to Kansas City for S Jarrad Page

In 2013, the Patriots have their picks in Rounds 1-4 and 7.  They have already traded their 5th round pick to Washington for DT Albert Haynesworth and their 6th round pick to Cincinnati for WR Chad Ochocinco.

As in years past, expect Bill Belichick to work some deals to build the draft not only for the remainder of the weekend but for next year as well.  Some of Belichick’s best picks lately have been in the mid (3-4-5) to late (6-7) rounds and right now he only has two picks in that area this year and three next year and I fully expect that to change.

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RB Eric Kettani, a Naval Academy graduate, who has been with the Patriots the last year in training camp has been granted his release from the U.S. Military and allowed to return to the Patriots on a full-time basis.

He was granted select reserve status last year after having served two years in the active military and was allowed to attend training camp.  As a selective reserve he was to promote the Navy and do charitable work in his free time from the Patriots.

After earning a spot on the practice squad Kettani was summoned back to active duty by the Navy last October.  Kettani appealed the Navy ruling, which was ultimately overturned on Wednesday.

The team released Kettani last season when he was recalled to preserve the roster spot but had hoped the military would reconsider prior to the end of the season.

He is now free to pursue his NFL career on a full-time basis and was a Patriots voluntary workout’s last week.

You know this absolutely thrills Bill Belichick, an Annapolis native whose father Steve coached and scouted for the Naval Academy, who holds the military players in very high regard because of that connection.

Look for Kettani to compete with Danny Woodhead, Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen for carries in camp.

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photo credit: Getty Images

The New England Patriots signed free agent place kicker Chris Koepplin.  Koepplin, a UMass product, was with the Patriots in training camp in 2011 and was among the final cuts.  He handled a bulk of the kick off duties in preseason games as Stephen Gostkowski worked his way back from a quad injury.

He did not play in the NFL in 2011.

The team also will be bringing back long time center Dan Koppen who missed most of 2011 with a season ending ankle injury suffered in Week 1 against Miami.  The Boston College product was the Patriots 5th round pick in the 2003 NFL Draft.  He is a former All-Pro, Pro Bowl selection and has played on two Super Bowl championship teams.

Defensive Kyle Love, an exclusive rights free agent, has reportedly signed his tender with the team.  Love was a second year free agent and as an ERFA he had to take the Patriots offer at the 3-year veteran minimum salary of $540,000 or leave the NFL.

Last season Love had 33 tackles and 3 sacks and played in more than 50% of the teams defensive snaps.

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photo credit: AP Photo

The NFL released its 2012 regular season schedule tonight for all 32 teams.  Below is the schedule for the New England Patriots and the TV network the game will be played on.

Here is the Patriots pre season schedule.  At this time it looks like the August 20th game is an ESPN game against the Eagles with the others on local television.

New England Patriots 2012 schedule

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The New England Patriots added another linebacker to their roster on Thursday when they signed former Ohio State standout Bobby Carpenter.

Carpenter, who played along side A.J. Hawk at Ohio State, was a first round draft pick (18th overall) of the Dallas Cowboys in the 2006 NFL Draft.  He never lived up to the hype in Dallas and in four seasons failed to secure a starting job.

Prior to the 2010 season, he was traded by Dallas to St. Louis and was cut at the conclusion of training camp.

He signed with Miami but was released about a month later.  Detroit picked him up as a free agent in late October 2010 and played there the last two seasons.

Terms of the contract were not revealed but like many of this year’s free agents signed by the Patriots expect it to be extremely team friendly.

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photo credit: Getty Images

The New England Patriots have hired former NFL quarterback Chris Simms as a coaching assistant.  Simms is the son of CBS NFL analyst and Super Bowl XXI MVP Phil Simms.

There has been no word from Foxboro yet about what Simms role may be but he did play for offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels while he was the head coach in Denver.

Simms, who played quarterback at Texas, was a third round pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2003 NFL Draft (97th overall).   He played with Tampa Bay from 2004-07 after not playing a snap in his rookie season of 2003.

In 2006, Simms suffered a life threatening injury on the football field against Carolina.  After taking several hard hits he was taken off the field but later returned to play.  After leading a scoring drive Simms returned to the bench in distress.  He was taken to a local hospital where it was determined he had a ruptured spleen and had internal bleeding.  Simms later said he lost 5 pints of blood and in another 45 minutes without treatment he conceded he’d have been dead.

In 2008, he signed with the Tennessee Titans after there were rumors he would come to New England to replace the injured Tom Brady.  The Patriots decided not to sign Simms and stayed with Matt Cassel as the quarterback and finished 11-5.

In 2009 he played for McDaniels in Denver and in 2010 he re-signed with Tennessee.  He was cut just before Week 1 but returned later in 2010 when Vince Young suffered a season ending injury.

In 8 NFL seasons, Simms played in 22 games and threw 12 TD’s and 18 INT’s.

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photo credit: Dallas Observer

Nike has taken over the apparel and uniforms for all 32 NFL teams from Reebok and on Tuesday, Nike released the new uniforms for all teams, including the Patriots.

Here’s a look at the uniforms and glove:

You can see all about the uniforms including technical aspects as well as the new uniforms for all 32 teams at NikeInc.com.

More pics of the uniforms are available at NFL.com.

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photo credits: Nike, Inc

The New England Patriots signed free agent running back Tony Fiammetta who formerly played for the Dallas Cowboys.

Fiammetta, a 6 foot 4, 242 pound fullback went to college at Syracuse and is a former fourth round draft pick of the Carolina Panthers.

No terms of the contract have been released at this time.

The Patriots also released RB Lousaka Polite who was a late season signing after the Miami Dolphins had released him.

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Photo credit: Getty Images

The New England Patriots had a couple small bits of news I’ve been holding onto waiting to for Bill Belichick to find more discount free agent coupons.  But like in my house someone else must have grabbed any new ones that have come in recently.

The Patriots announced that back up quarterback Brian Hoyer will return in 2012 as the restricted free agent after signing his RFA Tender.  The second round tender is worth $1.92 million, not bad money for a second stringer.  If Hoyer had signed with another team and the Patriots decided not to match the contract offer to keep Hoyer they would have gotten a second round pick for him.

Hoyer didn’t appear to receiver any interest, at least nothing any teams or his agent made public.  This was kind of surprising seeing as he is quite possibly the second best quarterback in the AFC East.

It was expected that Hoyer would generate some interest but that was before Robert Griffin III upgraded his draft position, Peyton Manning got released by the Colts and went on a free agency tour and Tim Tebow got traded.  Maybe the second round pick was too high for anyone who may have had some interest in Hoyer.  After the 2012 season he will become an unrestricted free agent like former Packers QB Matt Flynn was this year and he will likely be in line for a Flynn-like contract from some quarterback poor team.

In other news, wide receiver Chad Ochocinco, soon to be re-named Chad Johnson, has restructured his contract for 2012.  Instead of the $3 million he was to earn from New England he will now make $1 million.

Ochocinco’s restructure is much different from the Tom Brady restructure that was revealed last week.  Brady moved salary around to help with cap space and took the money as a signing bonus spread out over three seasons.  Ochocinco gave up $2 million.

He stated he wants to win and to do it in New England and he took a 66% pay cut in order to remain a Patriot.  We all know how much Chad loves being here, playing with Brady and for Belichick.  We also know how they feel about Chad.  It’s a mutual admiration society and for some unknown reason I just can’t figure out why he was used the way he was last season.

There was lots of speculation he didn’t know the plays but I am not so sure that I buy into that theory.   Belichick has shown absolutely zero patience in the past for players who can’t hack the system.  Joey Galloway comes to mind, as do a few defensive guys who were dumb as a box of rocks.  So if Ochocinco didn’t grasp the playbook why would Belichick keep him?

I am a huge fan of Chad the football player.  I’ve seen things he does on the field and every week I hoped we would see that in 2011 and for whatever the reason we did not. Hopefully in 2012 we will find out why he hung around.

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Photo credits: Getty Images, Getty Images

Spencer Larsen has signed a two-year deal with the New England Patriots.  Larsen, formerly of the Denver Broncos, is a fullback and linebacker, who also plays special teams.  He once started a game on special teams, at fullback and linebacker for the Broncos. 

Pretty safe to say he is a Bill Belichick type of player.

The Mesa AZ native went to the University of Arizona and was Denver’s 6th round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft.

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Photo credit: AP Photo